Marked for Mohammad Ali Kazemi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Foolad
Hamed Lak and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Foolad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammad Reza Soleimani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Naft Tehran to sit and watch. I want to come back to Foolad and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Nobody at Foolad will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Saipa in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market16 Nov 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Abolfazl Razzaghpour signs something — a contract at Foolad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
Alireza Nazi’s loan is measured in nothing happening
5 clean sheets from 8 appearances at Rah Ahan. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohammad Reza Keshavarzi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for Foolad
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Foolad are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Foolad
Hamed Lak and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Match17 Oct 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Foolad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saeid Sadeghi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match17 Oct 2026
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Saeid Sadeghi had Foolad level again within 4 minutes, and Zob Ahan never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad19 Oct 2026
25 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I watch every Foolad game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Naft Tehran runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Karim Vafaei to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Hamed Lak in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alireza Ebrahimi commits to Foolad for another 2 years.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Vahid Amiri is still paying for one afternoon at Foolad
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Squad5 Oct 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Foolad are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Sasan Ansari knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Foolad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Karim Vafaei chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ramin Rezaeian, 36, rolls back the years — 8.17
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.17 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foolad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ramin Rezaeian scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Sepahan, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Foolad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sina Asadbeigi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Foolad, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Malavan in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Match9 Sep 2026
Cup progress for Foolad
A 2‑2 win over Malavan, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match9 Sep 2026
A 2-goal lead gone for Foolad
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Malavan kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Foolad will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Market14 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Zob Ahan moved on, Mohammad Ghoreishi reports back to Foolad, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Mehdi Khezri at 20 — 7.61
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mehdi Khezri did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Foolad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Reza Soleimani is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
12 combined actions and 7.41. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Match12 Sep 2026
At last: Foolad win one
5 matches without a win, and then this, against Esteghlal. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Esteghlal, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market31 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Gostaresh Foulad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Match29 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Foolad
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Foolad are no longer polite ones.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Foolad
Hamed Lak was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zob Ahan have kept their man, and Foolad go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match29 Aug 2026
1‑2 to Gostaresh Foulad, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Matheus Costa falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Foolad are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.